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About this quote

What does it mean?
Great ideas require both a creator and an audience capable of appreciating them.
In plain terms
Great thoughts need both a thinker and a listener.
What can you take from it?
Value the audience as much as the inventor.

Where it applies

  • arts
  • innovation
  • education

Putting it to work

  • cultivate appreciation
  • support creators and audiences

Questions to consider

  • Who understands your ideas?
  • Are you helping create or appreciate?

Another view

Sometimes great ideas precede the ability to understand them.

More from Joseph Joubert

  1. What is true by lamplight is not always true by sunlight.

    Permalink to quote #94
  2. When you go in search of honey you must expect to be stung by bees.

    Permalink to quote #96
  3. What can you possibly add to a mind that's full, especially one that's full of itself.

    Permalink to quote #93

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